Polymer-Enforced Crystallization of a Eutectic Binary Hard Sphere Mixture

Abstract

We prepared a buoyancy matched binary mixture of polydisperse polystyrene microgel spheres of size ratio 0.785 and at a volume fraction of 0.567 just below the kinetic glass transition. In line with theoretical expectations, a eutectic phase behavior was observed, but only a minor fraction of the samples crystallized at all. By adding a short non-adsorbing polymer we enforce inter-species fractionation into coexisting pure component crystals, which in turn also shows signs of intra-species fractionation. We show that in formerly inaccessible regions of the phase diagram binary hard sphere physics is made observable using attractive hard spheres. Ancillary files: Correction to Soft Matter 2012, 8, 627

4 pages, 2 Figures, Final accepted draft plus correction

References in corpus (6)

• Equilibrium phase behavior of polydisperse hard spheres
• Monte Carlo simulations of the solid-liquid transition in hard spheres and colloid-polymer mixtures
• Fractionation effects in phase equilibria of polydisperse hard sphere colloids
• Phase behaviour of deionized binary mixtures of charged colloidal spheres
• Phase behavior of a deionized binary mixture of charged spheres in the presence of gravity
• Novel zone formation due to interplay between sedimentation and phase ordering

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Crystallization kinetics of colloidal model suspensions: recent achievements and new perspectives
• To make a glass - avoid the crystal
• From Nuclei to Micro-Structure in Colloidal Crystallization: Investigating Intermediate Length Scales by Small Angle Laser Light Scattering
• Equilibrium Fluid-Crystal Interfacial Free Energy of Bcc-Crystallizing Aqueous Suspensions of Polydisperse Charged Spheres
• Tunable Crystalline Order and Growth Kinetics in 2D Binary Colloidal Self-assembly Driven by Depletion Interactions
• Formation of a transient amorphous solid in low density aqueous charged sphere suspensions